Media Content Recordings
Typically, media content is disseminated through broadcasts such as radio and television. Broadcast media, including television and radio, provide the bulk of today's news, weather, sports, and entertainment programming. The term “broadcast” refers to a distribution method whereby the programming is transmitted from a single central location to large number of recipients over a common medium. Examples include traditional “over-the-air” commercial radio and television broadcasts, satellite television and radio systems (e.g., such as DIRECTTV, ECHOSTAR, XM and other similar systems), as well as cable television systems. Broadcast programs may include movies, music, series, news and weather reports, commercial messages, and other items of interest. Broadcast systems have typically lacked a means for communicating information from the recipient to the broadcaster (a so-called “back-channel”).
Generally, the public views media content as it is being broadcast. However, increasingly, many users are time-shifting and recording media content on a multitude of recording devices such as (Digital) Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs), Digital Video Recorders, Recordable DVDs, personal computers, and/or the like. Also, users are archiving and storing content digitally. For example, users are encoding their CD collections into digital file formats such as MP3 onto their computers and portable audio devices.
Traditional broadcast programming generally contains no provision for limiting the playback or copying of recorded material. One exception is the Macrovision copy-protection system. The Macrovision system prevents copying to traditional VCRs. This is accomplished by modifying the analog video signal in such a way that most VCRs cannot make a usable copy while most television receivers are able to present the video program with minimal distortion.